Generally, when a car of an elevator arrives at a hall and the door is opened, the door is closed after a particular time elapses, and the car departs. At this time, since the passenger of the elevator cannot know when the door starts to close, the passenger may be hit by the door that is closing when he/she gets into the car from the hall.
In order to avoid such a collision with the door at the time of boarding, it has been considered to detect a passenger who will get into the car by a sensor, and control the opening/closing operation of the door. As the sensor, generally, a photoelectronic sensor is used. That is, by installing the photoelectronic sensor at the upper part of the car, a passenger who will get into the car is optically detected. Since the door-opened state is maintained while the passenger is being detected, it is possible to prevent the passenger from being hit by the door that is closing, and also from being drawn into a door pocket of the door.
However, a detection range of the photoelectronic sensor is narrow, and thus, the passengers can be detected only in a focused manner. Accordingly, there are cases where a door closing operation is started since the presence of a passenger who is at a place some distance away from the car cannot be detected, or conversely, the door is opened since a person who has just passed near the car is erroneously detected.